KAOS
by ReadPlayFun
Summary: Izumi Mei found herself lost in Shizume city, except lost in pieces of memories from the people that held great emotions in this loop. She shouldn't have gotten involved, she just needed to get home and forget all about the experience; she doesn't need to hear the music of reality anymore. AU, characters experiencing a loop with Mei. No main pairings. Rated T just in case ON HIATUS
1. Chapter 1: Night

**Chapter 1: Night**

The dark grey clouds slowly loomed over the city, covering the midnight sky and looking down upon earth under its breath. The pavement was still damp and slippery from the rain earlier in the day and the people were hurrying back home with umbrellas over their heads to avoid the grumbling noises of the clouds. Whether it was a school student heading home after school or a lonely shop watching the droplets of rain come running down their front doors, it was certain there was one girl out there, standing in a narrow and lonesome alleyway.

Her silky deep blue hair resembled the mysterious depths of the sea; her lone large blue eye gave a stunning and unique look that whenever you stare into it they'd stare back into your soul. Her blue hair divided into two sides, they were tied together loosely as they rested on her shoulders. Wearing a simple winter uniform from a school far away from this city and a deep crimson scarf wrapped loosely around her neck, she stared at her iPhone text messaging, looking extremely lost and frustrated.

_-Out of Battery-_

She then reaches into her pocket and grabs her PDA out. There was no luck. Earlier in the day, she had accidentally left the PDA uncharged, also accidentally drenched in water as she was running past by a lake. Luck was not on her side today. The two dead devices on her only meant only extra weight to carry, though the PDA could be chucked away already since she could just get a new one.

She sighed as the breath escaping from her pale blue lips became white in the cold wintery night.

As the rain started pouring down onto land fearless and merciless, battering the ground with its each on entity, the girl simply stood in the rain, feeling not only the raindrops throwing itself at her face and neck, but also how delicate and soft the water it actually was. She understands she would become very wet and damp after, but she was confused and lost, no idea where to head after.

Though the answer itself was not very complicated. A shelter to stay for the night would be nice. A warm shower perhaps, too.

Since she still had some money left, enough to survive with for at least 3 or 4 days of grocery foods, she headed for a nearby abandoned hotel until she was distracted by something.

It was something that she should've stayed away from, but still caught herself in trouble without her even trying.

The young girl knew very well what this area of the city was known for – street gangs and violence. In fact, the whole city was under this '7 King Clans' rule where several clans' kings gather clansman and take over a territory and... Well, she didn't really know why the 'clans' existed in the first place, so maybe that was why it wasn't the very first thought that came to mind. She should've known those delinquents would hang around near these alleyways, either bashing someone up or going to bash someone up. Both things are pretty much the same, but seriously though, what else do they do?

One thing was obviously different from these street gang though, they're HOMRA, also the red clansmen of the Red King, Suoh Mikoto, not that she really minded about HOMRA but she knew that she as a girl can't just do a 'hit-and-run' on the guys if they came up to you, they're a whole heck stronger than you think, especially when you realise they're much more specialised in violence and can instantly kill you with their _supernatural_ powers if they wanted to.

But there's always Izumi Mei, she's not just an ordinary 16-year-old high schooler you'd find anywhere in Japan – at least somewhat abnormal.

Placing her icy hands in her orange jacket pockets, she walked on listening to the soundwaves around her through her bulgy earphones. Her earphones weren't ordinary ones either – they had no cord and _that_ was the point. She doesn't need to listen to music or the daily news, instead, she listens to the atmosphere, the music of reality.

The words rang in her mind as she walked with her head hung low, staring into the ground. There was not even the slightest shed of moonlight and the light poles weren't much of help, but as she walked closer and closer to the destination, the louder_ her_ footsteps echoed in the narrow alleyway.

Mei gradually stopped at a nearby light pole, then peers behind her. There were some covering above her, which was good for the time being because that way she can get dry sooner from the falling rain, but there was another noise in the melody.

_Drip, drip, drip._

_Splatter, _**clank**_, step, step, _drop_._

Each time the noises increased in her ears, there was no doubt; something was slowly approaching with her, something within their hands.

Knowing this, Mei purposely did not turn around to scream for help or get bashed for being too loud, but instead, she stood stationarily in the light, observing the situation.

Then, just as she could hear and _feel_ an object cutting through the thin air, she immediately dodged the object as she jumped to her right, landing inches away from the pole. She slowly took stance for defence until she saw a few flickering light of red flames. Mei immediately knew this was no normal opponent and that standard defence stances will not work, but nonetheless she still positioned herself to plan attack as the offender was still unknown – it was dangerous to attack without any knowledge of the opponent. Mei's facial expression wrote nothing but only an unreadable eye and the other hidden under her eye patch.

"Who are you?" Cancelling her earlier position, she pulled herself together and stood by the pole with her arms by her side, asking with a soft and monotonous but still threatening and strong voice. "Tell me immediately and you will be unharmed."

"Unharmed…?" The owner of the voice sounded confused, no, he _was_. Now that only made Mei more and more confused as to who he is. "That kinda voice… It can't be – a g-girl?"

Mei backed away as he came closer and closer towards the light, but Mei didn't even break a sweat of being worried or scared, instead, she backed away to see who it was under the dim light. Staring intently at the figure, as if trying to read his movements, she said in a clearer voice, "Let me say it again, who are you?"

A young and short looking boy stood in the dim light with a heavy looking silver bat resting at his right shoulder; he also has a wet red umbrella that had droplets of water still lingering and rolling down the plastic. Underneath the dim light, it was given that his chestnut hair was rather messy and was just reaching past the nape of his neck, thick locks of hair pointing in various directions. A visibly black beanie was wrapped around his hair and head; he had a set of earphones resting comfortably around his neck; also wearing a white and long v-neck shirt. Looking closer, he had a wristwatch on his wrist. His hazel eyes seemed furious and threatening at first, but he gave a funny looking expression towards Mei. This perhaps could mean he wasn't 'young'-young, but he was short so Mei still decided to back off. _No. 1 rule of anime is to never call a guy short or he'd start thrashing you._ Mei thought.

Did she look out of the ordinary except for perhaps, the black eye patch sealed over her left eye?

"Who am I? Well who the hell are _YOU_?! – I mean, uh…" The boy started shouting harshly and abusively, but as if remembering something, he then dropped the intimidating speech abruptly and began searching for words as he dropped the bat in his hands beside him, covering his mouth. "I am uh…Yata… Misaki…Um er, s-sorry for startling you, I uh, didn't mean to…"

Mei dropped her thoughts of being bashed up and paused for a moment to think. _It would seem as though he has a soft spot for girls…? _Still having millions of questions in her chest, she lifted her head up and pasted a forced smile, but enough to hide the awkwardness of the atmosphere. "I see, Yata-san. 'Misaki' is a very nice name. I am Izumi Mei, my parents called me Mei but in English it sounds a lot like 'May', *_gogatsu _and _'hesitant'_. Now that we have ourselves introduced, may I please ask why you are out here in the dark alone?"

_A 'nice' name?_ Misaki thought, slightly irritated but flustered at the same time. When someone is a stranger, moreover a girl, says your name is nice and you actually hate it more than anything, it's annoying but embarrassing at the same time. That feeling just gives you the shivers. _Hm, well, Mei isn't a bad name either, but I feel like I've heard of it somewhere..._ Ditching the thought, Misaki merely continued the conversation, or else he'd look weird. "Aah… Izumi…-san, yes? Uh, I um…"

_Can't say I was trying to bash her up 'cause I thought she was gonna trash the bar in middle of the night when the others were probably sleeping like logs…_ Misaki mentally facepalmed himself as he thought of an excuse to answer Mei's question.

"…Just taking a midnight stroll around the city I guess. I can ask the same to you Izumi-san, why are you out in the night all alone? And you're all wet from the rain! It's dangerous, you know that right?"

Mei stopped for a moment, frowning, and then turned around, putting her back in Misaki's face. She sighed, "I am currently lost and I cannot contact my friends because both of my contacting devices have died on me and one has even been drenched in water. I am now going to find a hotel or just somewhere to stay. I'm hungry too, you see." Mei glanced at the young boy's presence and a wave of nostalgia kicked into her, although she swears it was the first time she had ever met this guy called Yata Misaki. She somewhat felt the feeling of betrayal, the feeling of the loss of a friend, a general wave of aggression. Ignoring all the sudden nausea, she continued, "Now, I shall take my leave. I will have to return soon since my parents and my younger brother is still waiting for me at home. I will see you around… If I can that is."

"Wait, I mean uh I um er… sorry…" When Mei finished her final farewell words, she was taken aback by the young boy's hand as he gripped her wrist unconsciously tightly, but soon had let go of Mei's wrist when he realised he was not to touch a maiden's hand so rashly. "..I mean…Living in a hotel room, just yourself? You don't even have your PDA, it'll be dangerous if they find out you don't have an identity… At least that's what I heard. You can stay over at our place… If you want for the night. You don't have to, but at least it would be safer…"

_Right, living under the same roof with the guy who tried to _kill _me is definitely a whole heck safer._ Mei thought silently as she half turned around to look at his determined face. Mei merely sighed as quietly as she could, and smiled to Misaki. "I suppose you're right, Yata-san, but who is this 'our' you're talking about? Do you live with other people?"

The last question seemed to hit the bullseyes – Misaki beamed with excitement and general enthusiasm. Misaki went blabbering on about how he was from the HOMRA group and 'Mikoto-san' was the hero that saved him from isolation. Mei could only stand there, listening to his historical words, taking everything into account – even the soft touch of rain falling from the leaves' embrace.

The dull sky cleared as Misaki continued the words of pride with HOMRA. The glimmering stars and city lights were just as pretty as she had thought it would be like. The soft breeze, the swaying trees, every single part of it.

Staring into the scenery, she found herself deeply lost once again, but only this time she was drowning in a sea of despair and anger… What was this feeling washing through her so thoroughly? It was the emotions of a certain group of people, screaming and sobbing, hungry for revenge.

"Um… Izumi-san?" Misaki finally summarised his words and immediately asked Mei thoughtfully as he saw her pale white face, "Are you alright?"

"Aah… Yes, thank-you for your concern," Mei stuttered as she placed a hand over her forehead, wiping some of the sweat off her face. "HOMRA definitely sounds like a nice group of people to be with, you must be very familiar with them if you can say so many benefits about your gang, especially Mikoto-san."

"Yeah…" Seeing as though Mei was in a rather weak and unstable condition, he thought he'd stop talking in the night, well, he wanted to do that but he couldn't find the correct time to stop. He felt as if Mei was just the right person to talk to, but she was merely a stranger, passing by in the night, finding a shelter to stay for the night, but there was _definitely _unique about her existence, but Misaki couldn't seem to find what, not that he was bothered by it, it just seemed_ right_ to find the answer. "We'll head to the place now, which isn't very far actually."

"I see," Somewhat relieved, Mei softened her facial expression as the strange nausea passed by. It didn't quite _feel_ like nausea, but the soundwaves in her ears were ringing rapidly and abruptly in her ears. The heartbeats told her something was bound to happen a second time. Ignoring all the pounding noises in her head, she asked whilst struggling to get a hold of her balance. "So where's this place we're heading to…?"

"HOMRA bar. It's near the corner." Misaki pointed towards the corner and said with an obvious concerned tone. "M-Maybe you've caught a cold or something… I mean, you have rain water all over you. You wouldn't be feeling great if you don't dry yourself soon." After saying so, Misaki pulled off his red jacket that was tied around his waist and offered it to Mei. "I'll lead the way, just take it easy. Is this the first time you've came to the Shizume City?"

Accepting Misaki's kindness, Mei reached out for the jacket and slowly wrapped herself with the jacket. She murmured softly, "It's warm…"

"Hm? Did you say something Izumi-san?"

"Oh um, nothing." Mei covered as she played the tip of her hair, walked besides Misaki. "This is my first time coming to Shizume City. It is pretty, indeed."

"...I-I see," Misaki didn't have a reply, more like he couldn't have – he was too stale to say anything. This was probably the closest distance he had ever been with a girl; his mind went blank for a very short moment. He swore he could feel his face burning like a living hell and rapidly turning into a fresh picked tomato.

_Maybe he attacked me because he thought I was suspicious? Given from all the proud talk and how close I was to the bar, it makes a whole heap of sense._ Mei thought as she pulled over her red scarf to cover her chin and mouth. _Not his fault I guess, it is my fault for being lost in the city._

Since the rain had stopped falling from the sky, it was safe to walk to the bar for the time being. There were still lingering noises of the raindrops dripping off the poles, the leaves and the umbrellas. There weren't any harsh wind in the area, which was nice to just feel the soft and refreshing breeze brush through you.

Mei looked around as they arrived in front of the bar. The bar itself looked very polished and well looked after, in fact, calling it the 'HOMRA bar' isn't just a nickname, it literally is called 'HOMRA'. _It would make sense if this is the headquarters for the HOMRA group._ Mei observed. It seems to also have 2 levels on top of the ground level. _So is that where they live?_

A man wearing a pair of purple glasses wore a long sleeved shirt with a collar that is upturned stood in the interior part of the bar. Under the collar was a red scarf fashioned similarly to a neck tie. When he realised there were people entering the bar, he continued wiping the wine glass in his hands with a seemingly clean towel. "Sorry, we're closed for the day – Oh, it's just Misaki? Where have you been? I thought you just went out to watch a baseball game or something?"

Misaki placed the baseball bat and the umbrella on the side and sitting on one of the high chairs and sighed, "Only if that goddamn rain wouldn't come setting down, damning the whole game then I probably would've been happier. Glad to have an umbrella with me though. Thanks for the advice Kusanagi-san."

"Welcome," Kusanagi placed the wine glass one of the shelves and glanced at the door where Mei stood awkwardly. Smirking, he whispered into Misaki's ear with a mischievous tone, "So who's that? Your girlfriend? Way to go Misaki~ Finally gotten out of the 'forever alone' path!"

"Wha- no huh whaaaaaaa…Kusanagi-san!" After hearing such embarrassing words, Misaki wanted to explain the situation but found himself stumbling over words and blushing like a maniac.

Closing the door behind her, making a satisfying soft 'click' behind her, she stood in front of the doorway. Before Misaki could make his explanation properly to Kusanagi, Mei bowed with her black backpack on her back, then started, "Hello and I apologise for the late notice. I am Izumi Mei, currently 16. I am actually lost in this city and I had to find a shelter to stay for the night. Um, Yata-san suggested me to stay here for the night. Is that fine with you? If it is not ideal, it is no problem for me leave and find somewhere else to stay."

Kusanagi seemed to think about this as he observed Mei carefully. Somewhat frustrated, he ran his hand through his short blond hair as if thinking whether or not he should take in another _stray_.

Mei actually felt a little nervous to his answer, although the reason was practically unknown. Secretly, she crossed her fingers and wished she could stay even just for the night.

Before Kusanagi could reply, a voice interrupted, "Yeah why not!"

There stood yet another man with long light brown hair with an upturned collared long sleeve shirt. Inspecting closer, he has an earring on his left ear and wore two bracelets on his left wrist. Holding onto a camera he smiled from ear to ear, and said happily, "We'll make sure you get out of the city safely, but first, we've got to make sure you don't catch a cold!"

Slightly surprised as to where he came from or was he _even_ there, Mei nodded silently. She sighed with relieve as she walked inches further away from the doorway. "Thank-you very much," She bowed once again, extremely grateful for their kindness, "Once again, I must apologise for the late notice."

"Don't sweat about it," the man smiled, "By the way, I'm Totsuka Tatara. Call me whatever you want for the time being!"

Mei stared at the carefree man now known as Totsuka Tatara as she followed his lead. "I see, Totsuka-san. Thank-you for your kindness."

"You're welcome," Totsuka smiled as he climbed the stairs with the old fashioned camera in his hands, "Stay as long as you want, there is no need to rush – Oh but if you do need to leave the city I'll make sure not to drag you down!"

"Um… Yeah…" Mei replied stiffly as she was standing in front of the door she asked, "Is this where I'll be staying for the night?"

Totsuka glanced at Mei's wet figure and said, "Yup, it might be a little dusty at parts but I'll do that whilst you have a shower. Better not catch a cold! Colds are nasty at times like these. The bathroom is the room right to yours. Take as long as you need."

"Ah, thank-you very much," Mei replied as she slightly blushed as she had just realised how wet and heavy she felt. "I will be going then."

Kusanagi stared at Totsuka and Mei's figure heading for the stairs and sighed as quietly as he could. He reached for his jean pocket and pulled out a cigarette pack, popped one into his mouth and lit it up, emitting a line of grey smoke, filling the room with the smell of cigarettes. "Just make sure you don't trash the place."

"Yes," Mei replied as she peered back, disappearing from the ground level.

"Guess we've got another accompany with us, growing onto the habit that Totsuka has haven't you," Kusanagi said as he stared at the smoke in the air.

"I just did what I thought was right, that was all," Misaki said with a forceful tone as he averted Kusanagi's sight, blushing with a tint of red. "I mean, she's just a girl, and she _just_ said she was 16, now that is what I call _dangerous_."

Kusanagi simply stared at Misaki, and squished the cigarette butt. "I suppose you're right. You've grown a lot, Misaki."

Walking to the bathroom felt so long but it was like walking into heaven. _Aah… Finally! A warm hot shower! _Mei thought thankfully as she twisted the door knob and set inside. The bathroom was just any ordinary bathroom you'd find. The white tiles, the clear mirrors, Mei just missed all of it dearly.

Before Mei could strip off and jump into paradise, she hurried to the door and locked the door. _There's like full grown guys everywhere… Better lock the door just in case._

After she made sure it was all locked, she softened her expression and rolled her shoulders as she placed her backpack on the ground. She searched through her black backpack for a new set of clothes and placed on top of the bag where a piece of cloth laid underneath the clothes, preventing it from getting wet. She then started taking off Misaki's red jacket when she realise she had forgotten to return it. _Ah… Gotta give it back to him after this. _After taking off her dress, she made sure to removed the object wrapped with red cloth from her dress, in case if she picked it up and accidentally scared herself whilst she could be unaware.

After stripping her clothes off, she walked in front of the mirror and stared back at the mirrored image of her face. Everything about her body wet and her hairstyle was complete ruined. Pulling the two red elastic bands off her two loose piggy tails, she redid her hair and let it flowed as it set down behind her ears. She then looked into her lone blue eye, shakily inhaled and exhaled.

The left side of her eye was sealed and patched with a thick, black and waterproof eye patch. As she reached for the eye patch, she slowly removed it and placed it besides her. Underneath the plain black eye patch was yet another eye patch, but with a strange pattern engraved on it. Reaching for the back of her head, she found the knot and fiddled with it, successfully untangling the strings and pulled it down. The eye remained shut as the pupil slowly revealed itself through the slit.

The violet eye was a lonesome clock, marching its way out of reality.

-TBC 

Things ya need to know! -Actually it's an A/N

First off, Izumi Mei (May) is an OC made for a project that my friends and I are currently on. Although we haven't gotten very far into making the manga yet, we have decided to start a light novel called SOUP-ER WAR CHAOS!. The project is also called TheCHAOSProject.

I find it very funny how my characters resemble so much of other games/anime that I like e.g Corpse Party, [K], but I watched all these _after _I made the characters.

Secondly, this is my first time writing a fanfic and it is heavily based on an AU, but I want to make sure it still follows the main anime cannon storyline; I mean I love the cannon storyline as much as you guys love it! :D Also, there isn't going to be any OC x original characters because I generally dislike stories like these, but there will be moments between May and the clansmen/kings, but let's not get sidetracked. :P

Thirdly, the original characters might be OOC, but I will try my best not to! Truthfully speaking, I dislike it when characters are out of their personalities… It… just doesn't seem right, but I guess that's just me.

Lastly, I want to say [K], aka K-Project, does not belong to me, but GoRa does! As mentioned, Izumi Mei is merely an OC by me. Next chapter might come next week sometime so look forward to it~

Thank-you for reading! :D

*_gogatsu_ means May in Japanese.


	2. Chapter 2: Silence

Chapter 2: Silence

Normal – Japanese/Story

_Italics – Thoughts_

'_Italics WITH single quotation mark – Phone Call'_

~Tilde – Switch of sides/Time skip~

Sleeping through the endless hours of silence wasn't so easy. It was way harder to fall into dreamland than Mei had first anticipated.

First, sleeping in a totally stranger's room inside a bar building was one thing that would've sounded absolutely absurd to Ayami and the others, but she just needed rest and just somewhere to charge her PDA and iPhone – hope they'd understand why – then just sleep for heaven's sake. This was initially planned and wasn't going to make Mei change her mind but when Mei finished blow drying her hair, she had just realised how hungry she was after getting out of the shower, but she didn't want to disturb the men again as they equally needed rest, so she only searched through her damp bag and pulled out a packet of plain crackers to nibble on, although a good 99% of the packet was cracked and crumbling into pieces, Mei still ate them since it was better than nothing. In the end, the crackers weren't enough for Mei to be fulfilled. Nonetheless, Mei still tried sleeping, counting sheep and thinking that she's not hungry and she could eat as much as she once after the night is over.

When she finally fell asleep, somewhat still half conscious, strange noises and whispers echoed in her mind. In her strange and never ending nightmare, she only knew one thing, and that was she was merely running away from the darkness, heading only in one direction which was only forward. Except for the repeating sentences that were whispered through her ears like her regular earphones when she was awake in reality, she could hear herself panting clearly, the footsteps echoing in the trapped space, everything.

_Why am I here? Why are they screaming? Why are the voices so familiar? Why am I running…?_ Mei screamed in her mind painstakingly, panting and sweating like hell in her footsteps. _Wake up! Wake up! You can't continue on like this! You'll lose your sanity! Wake up… _Unfortunately, screaming at herself didn't make any effect on her consciousness on the other side of dreams, so she could only continue escaping.

What is it that she was running away from?

As she ran past figures' agonizing expressions, she gradually realised they were emitting either a beautiful crimson red flame around several body parts as she ran past them, or a simply stunning unique blue flame lighting itself every time she ran past them.

It just seemed like an endless _loop_.

The people seemed so familiar, almost _too_ familiar. She swore she has been with them before, but who are they? She cannot remember anything, anything but those words playing with her mind… She needs to wake up, fast. And forget everything. She needs to preserve her sanity for _something else_…!

Finally dropping onto her knees from non-reality exhaustion, she formed into a tight ball as she buried her head into her arms as she wrapped both of her arms around her legs, trapping herself in her own little world. She wanted to wake up and forget everything…

At this moment, Mei felt very much like a spoiled whiney little brat – she wanted mama and papa to just cuddle her and comfort her, saying that everything would be ok, but when she wished for this, she repeated a vivid memory of when she came back from a normal elementary school day, asking her mum where dad was since she needed him to give her the laptop because she wanted to play some games since she had no homework, but only to find them two fighting, screaming at each other in the kitchen, throwing various objects such as glass and utensils at each other. Shaky sobs escaped from her mother's pale lips and fusing anger of red flushed across her father's cheeks…

That moment, she just felt scared. There were no other words to describe her feelings at the time. Just… _Scared_. She could only remember she was trembling with fear and shivered as if someone had dumped a whole bucket of icy cold water over her head. She could still recall the feeling of sudden surprise and ignorance mixed together and mingled in her mind unconsciously, making its final mark in her memory. _Forever_.

Other than the fact her parents could easily get divorced over whatever reason it was, something had bugged her for a very long time after the incident – she couldn't remember how she got heterochromia iridum in her left eye, completely, too. A violet eye and a blue eye – she heard there was a distant relative of hers in England that was half British, so she supposed the violet eye was the _corrupted_ one. At the moment in time, hearing all the roaring and chaos beyond the door, she only remembered that she got scared from a possible divorce between her parents, trembling so violently that her legs felt like soft jelly making her lean against the wall as she slowly slid down, landing with a soft _thud_ on the wooden floor. Screams had echoed in her ears and her deep sea blue eyes wide as saucepans staring at the opposite wall that gave no answer… then silence.

The time after then became completely silent and dark.

When she woke up, her head was pounding like crazy. She found herself in her bed with the thick and white blanket nicely tucked inside. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and had realised it was too late to stop the divorce between her two parents…

They were gone.

Then a sealed power,

Then nothing at all.

For a few hours or what it felt like, Mei saw darkness under her heavy eyelids, then when slowly lifting them, all her thoughts of wanting to rest were washed away. She couldn't possibly have gone back to sleep after hearing all those whispers and emotions… Even if she wanted to forget them, she couldn't seem to forget them.

「This is our pride, don't you throw it away」

'_Pride'… huh._ Mei thought silently as that particular line echoed in her mind. _I wonder why that sentence hurts me the most._

Suddenly awaking from that strange but only paralysing dream, she found herself wrapped loosely with a thick white blanket, barely hanging onto her body as it slowly slid off the bed. Slowly sitting up and picking up the white blanket, she took in deep breaths and wiped sweat that were rolling down her neck and slowly entering past her collarbones. Given that the blanket was half hanging and pillows that seemed to have been scrunched up rashly and punched several times, ended on the opposite side of the bed where she was sleeping, she probably had been through a terrible time trying to _run away_ in reality, which of course, couldn't have.

Sighing, Mei stretched out her hand for her iPhone and dragged it across the bedside table and gently pressed the round button.

_1:47am_

Throwing the phone on her bed, she rolled out of bed and pulled apart the curtains that were covering over each other, devouring the moonlight that had tried entering the room, as if wanting to save her from her nightmare.

Once she had finished, she found herself staring out into the midnight sky, lost in thoughts once again.

_I wonder if this is how Ayami-chan feels like every day…_ Mei thought silently, untangling her hair that was fully past her chest area. _If it was me, I would've definitely either collapsed from exhaustion or lost my sanity and committed suicide from such pressure – not to even mention, see further into the future, something that can't be changed! Yet she smiles every day, the happiest kid out of all of us._

'Happy' was definitely not the word to be describing her current situation or emotion. It was more of 'Irritation'. Talking about irritation, it reminded her a lot of Lenta, her showing no feeling but only irritation… Mei could finally understand why only irritation was in her facial expression library – you just can't hold in the feeling of being irritated, even for someone that has another soul within their body, unable to express their real emotions, whereas other emotions like being happy or sad, practise a little and you can cover it with an act.

Mei sighed and looked over to her opposite side and searched for her bag. Since the moonlight wasn't able to reach where Mei wanted to look at, she dragged herself reluctantly to her black backpack, which its outer layer was still damp, and looked through her bag with a mini torch in her hand.

Luckily the bag had a waterproof inner layer that kept things inside safe from water, but as Mei thought more about it, she sighed, _Only if the people who made this was able to make use of their common sense and do the opposite, my life would be so much more logical._

Finally finding what she was looking for, she pulled out a PSP console and operated it. Sighing with a heavy hint of relieve, she waited for the console to load as a white square appeared on her face, blue eyes staring intently at the screen as she placed herself on the bed as she had the white blanket cover her slender white legs that were still trembling from the nightmare. Tying her hair back into a low ponytail behind her back with a vibrant red head band, she grabbed her crimson red scarf that was fortunately dried by the hair dryer and wrapped it around her neck.

The night was twice colder as compared to yesterday morning, so a plain white tank top and a third of her thigh shorts was definitely going to make her freeze the death.

「Whenever something goes wrong, always game even though you've got eye bags」- Izumi Mei's logical quote she always sticks to.

Well, it is going to be quite a long quiet night – that is for sure!

~ Her backpack has everything for survival needs ~v~ Aaand it of course includes gaming supplies for her own motto ~

Hearing the sound of birds singing sweetly to dear Mother Nature, welcoming yet another day of surprises, Grandpa Sun rose into the blue sky, embracing Shizume as if saying a hello and a sorry for not being able to be there yesterday.

Pressing the buttons rapidly and in a rhythmic pace, she immediately stops pressing as she sees the Game Clear stage with a Full Points mark and looks out of the window, blinding her with the sun rays flying into her room. Instinctively, she blocks the sunlight with her arm, squints and narrows her lone blue eye. Soon, she found herself adjusting her eyes to her surroundings.

Calculating the information and checking the time on her iPhone, she yawns with a bored face.

_6:59am_

Throwing her whole body onto the soft bed, she wrapped herself in the blanket and closed her eyes, eye bags seemingly growing darker each day pass by.

_I've become so much more observant since that incident with mum and dad, and even more since CHAOS needed my hacking and spying skills for battle and stuff I can't be bothered doing._ Mei thought as she opened her eyes again, seeing only darkness. _I wonder when I can stop this logical talk, be smart and just be like Ayami… God, I need to stop thinking, I need to get back to Itsuki or else he'd be freaking out! He's already had it tough since mum and dad have left both of us, alone… _

Sighing, Mei made her way to her backpack and pulled out a long black blazer that reached the middle of her thigh; slightly longer; a white upturned long sleeve shirt, she grabbed a white skirt that seemed to resemble an accountant's daily work uniform, long high knee socks that were extra long, about another 5 centimetres past her knees, and lastly, wrapped herself around the same old crimson, red scarf. To finish her attire, she threw a slim cotton jacket with inside pockets and brushed her hair, leaving her mysterious blue hair loose and swayed from one side to one side, though one certain stubborn strand of hair refused to mend with the hairstyle.

Everything was ready – her appearance, her backpack, but one thing she hadn't planned in mind was her footwear – the Adidas runners with pink strips was soaked in water – still a little wet, so Mei figured it would be the least ideal option she'd have to choose. Looking through her heavy backpack that seemed to have unlimited space, she found a pair of sandals… Revealing sandals on a wintery day? Hm, didn't seem right to Mei.

Sighing for how many times now, she slipped her feet into the icy cold runners. A shiver ran down her spine whatsoever randomly, causing her to feel a little pathetic.

Glancing at her iPhone, she picked it up and checked it properly.

_-29 missed calls-_

_-105 new messages-_

_So, I checked and observed everything, but not the key point of actually contacting the others? Really? What an idiot I am!_ Mei mentally facepalmed herself as she tapped the _missed calls _option.

To Mei's surprise, it was Lenta who had called her the most, 19 times – that's more than half the amount of calls she received altogether! Somewhat happy and guilty, she decided to give her a quick call and tell her what was going on, since she was the one who called her the most, silently hinting that she was worried about her. Even if it was a weird dream talk and mere imagination, she still innocently thought that way, waiting for her to pick up the phone.

After a few bleeps, someone finally picked up the phone. With a happy and joyous tone, she was about to say a positive greeting to her friend until she was interrupted with a flat and monotonous voice that had no emotions whatsoever.

'_Where are you?'_

Slightly surprised and disappointed, Mei dropped the idea of saying a joyful 'Yo!' to Lenta and replied with an equal monotonous voice, but still had a glint of human emotion in it.

"I'm in Shizume city, still – you told me to investigate this area, didn't you? Well, getting lost was definitely not the part of the plan. I'm in HOMRA bar right now – a few generous me- people offered me a room to rest for the night. I know you're probably gonna rage at me, but hey! My PDA was drenched in goddamn water and it was outta battery in the first place, and my iPhone was dead flat! What was I gonna do? Bro, you've gotta believe me, having a nightmare wasn't any of help either."

After a long pause, the air became unconsciously thick and awkward.

Lenta broke the silence and replied with the same voice of a robot's monotonous voice, but with only smoother fluency and pronunciations.

'_The situation is understood. I'll make sure to tell Itsuki and Ayami about this. Ayami was freaking out more than anyone, she was walking around my room non-stop, but now she's sleeping next to me. She was resisting from sleeping and kept saying she'd stay awake until you get back, but since her 'irregularity'[1] has gotten the best of her, she had fell into a deep sleep when it struck 12. And Itsuki. He had a pale face that I've never seen on his face before. He's using Hibiki's futon right now but even until now he clings onto the pillow and keeps calling you 'nee-chan', 'nee-chan~~'… So don't ever do this again. Come home immediately.'_

"…Sorry to give you so much trouble," Mei felt full on guilty, but when she heard 'home', she couldn't help but crack a smirk, "'Home'? Your 'hooooooooome'? Ufu." Mei joked.

'…_Ha ha ha, very funny. Now get back. Now.' _Lenta replied with a more sarcastic taste and a hint of irritation in her words. _'Or else I'm going to _kill_ you. I'll be off then.'_

"Aah wait," Before the brown haired 14-year-old girl could make her move of ending the call that was getting onto her nerves, the 16-year-old made her interruption. "I'm sorry, genuinely. Also…" Mei hesitated.

'_What's wrong? Spit it out.'_ Not even allowing a second to waste, Lenta practically forced Mei to speak up. _'Or else I'll be coming to get your butt. You're taking forever.'_

"You're getting more and more irritated by the second, as if you're impatient, _waiting_ for something," Mei finally spat out, "Is there a reason to that?" Adjusting her earphone's settings, she narrowed her eyes as the awkward silence continued on. With a serious and composed tone, she demanded, "Where's Hibiki? I want to talk to him."

There was another moment for silence to set in, until the words slipped through the young girl's lips. _'He went looking for you, in Shizume.'_

Eyes widening with shock and fear, she covered her mouth with her hand, paralysed to say anything. Until she could talk again, she subconsciously screamed at the phone. "WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP HIM?! IT'S DANGEROUS HERE! A WAR COULD BE HAPPENING ANY TIME WITH THE RED AND THE BLUE CLAN!"

'…_?'_ Obviously confused, Lenta mumbled reluctantly, irritated but still remained calm. _'You'd honestly think I wouldn't stop him? He insisted to go that stupid fake brother. …And what do you mean by 'a war between the red and the blue clan'? How can you see into the future when only Ayami has full potential of doing so? Just get back to where you actually belong, Mei.'_

Not only shocked, guilty and disappointed, she realised she had screamed at her friend that was obviously worried for her! Then she thinks about this harder, trying not to let the short-temper of hers get to her. She needs to act calm, and that's all she needs to know. Still surprised that she had 'predicted' the future, she sighed and said, "…Sorry, I didn't have a night of good sleep, I've stayed up all day yesterday…I'll be coming back now… But please, get Hibiki back, and if possible, get him before I get back to your house."

'…_Understood.' _ With the same tone of voice, Lenta merely obeyed her demands. She couldn't have continued the call, it wouldn't make sense. Mei needed the time off alone, and if she needs the time, as her friend Lenta would do as she wants.

Hanging the call, Mei placed her iPhone on the bedside table, collapsing onto the ground without any energy in her body to hold her legs up. What had she meant by a 'war between the red and blue clans'? She had only gathered information about the kings, the clans and their individual speciality, but it was just like what Lenta had said – she doesn't have the ability to see the future, unlike Ayami who has to see at least a day worth of the future, and when it's developed, she is able to see it all clearly – but Mei wasn't the fortune teller person, she's the spy, an investigator, but for an unknown reason she was able to feel the shockwave within her, engraving its past and future in her mind.

"…Hibiki's out there – I need to get back to Lenta…" Letting out a shaky breath, Mei rubbed her temples out of frustration. "Ah, my head is spinning more than usual, god, why now?!" Picking up her black backpack, she slammed it over her shoulder out of frustration.

Whilst Mei's thoughts were on getting out of the city, little had she knew the Red King was leaning against the door, only a few metres distance away from her lonesome figure. He had been there since the phone call, heard every word made out of her lips… Pulling his cigarette box out of his pocket, he pulled out a cigarette and drew it to his mouth, enclosing it. Simply flicking his thumb at the end of the cigarette set the tip of it on fire as a few flickering red flames escaped from his thumb. As if he had heard not even a whisper from the room the 16-year-old had been in, he left the hallway as it was, leaving it empty with the very end of his lips curl up into a mysterious smirk.

"…?" As Mei checked she hadn't forgotten anything, she turned her head to door opposite to where she was standing. The scent was very faint, but a lingering smell of cigarette smoke found its way into the room. _I swear there was someone there… But I can't guarantee I'm not hallucinating. _Mei scratched her head as she thought confused for a mere moment. Just as she was about to leave, she looked behind her as she had her right hand on the door knob, ready to set out. On a lone chair in the corner, there were still various clothes, damp and yet to dry. One of the clothing amongst Mei's personal things, was a wet and heavy red jacket.

_I wonder how I could forget that I had the damp clothes that I forgot to take care of… _Mei thought as she sighed.

"Might as well give 'em a _thanks_," Mei thought as she closed her eyes, a small smile slipped into her face as she walked over to the damp lump of things.

"Thank-you for being so kind."

~Lenta-chan's side~

Pulling the phone away from her ears, she stared at the screen with blank eyes.

_Had Ayami knew this was going to happen?_ Lenta thought silently as she untied her two loose plaits, shaking the hairstyle out as her hair fell out of place. _Why didn't she tell us? I thought she had developed her skills well enough... No – I shouldn't be blaming Ayami, it's my fault for letting her go into the city without knowing the possibility of her being lost in Shizume… It is pretty big._ Looking at Ayami's peaceful expression as she was asleep made Lenta think just how vulnerable human can be. _But couldn't Mei get back using her ultra soundwaves or whatever? Hmph, I guess a 16-year-old out in the night isn't ideal._ A million questions swam through her mind at the moment, but only one question with a few parts to it caught her attention. _Why could Mei see the future? Or is it something she just made up? But she didn't sound like she was lying, no – she wasn't. Then what does that mean?_

Sweeping Ayami's silky black hair onto one side, it would seem as though it had woke Ayami up. Slowly opening her eyes, squinting, and rubbing her eyes, she asked drowsily, "..Mei..-chan?"

"Good morning, Ayami," Obviously, Ayami hadn't realised it wasn't Mei that woke her up, but another friend of hers. "It's Lenta. It seems as though you didn't have any nightmares – so is it safe for me to assume Mei isn't going to die or Hibiki having a mental breakdown?"

Finally realising who it was, Ayami sat up next to Lenta as she left her lap, a tint of red flushed across her cheeks from embarrassment. Soon disappearing, Ayami stretched and yawned as she just remembered what made her so sleepy. With a convincing voice, Ayami demanded, "So where _is_ Mei? Have you found her yet? Is Hibiki back yet?"

"Answer my questions first," With an unconcerned voice, Lenta reversed her questions. "What did you see in your dreams?"

For a second, Lenta saw a hesitant expression that slipped into her sleepy face. "…Um, you know right, Lenta-chan," Ayami stared at the wooden floor intensely as she scrunched up her lacy dress with a disappointed pair of crimson red eyes. "I might sound ridiculously useless for saying this since you have to rely on my dreams… But I haven't been seeing anything for the past few days."

Slightly surprised on the inside, Lenta still managed to suppress the emotion inside her. Still as empty as ever, Lenta asked, "Since when?"

Hesitation kicked into Ayami's mind again. "Don't get angry, ok? The 'Dreams' stopped coming to me since the day before you told Mei to go to Shizume city to gather information. I thought 'irregularity' of mine decided to stop functioning for bit, you know, there was one time when that happened."

Lenta nodded in reply, and added, "Well you have been pushing yourself to the limit with your physical body and also mentally that time… In fact, I would describe it more of getting used to your new inherited 'irregularity' power – [Foreseeing Dreams][2]. I wouldn't blame you for that."

Ayami nodded slightly, but a slice of guilt still remained in her red orbs. "Yeah, but this time was different. It was strange now that I think about it – the dreams stopped abruptly, like, it had to be hidden from me, but since that week it was the finals, I didn't want to spend time on thinking about stuff like this… So I…" Her voice trailed off as she averted Lenta's cold eyes.

Sighing from both frustration and drowsiness, Lenta rubbed her temples and thought about it. _Maybe we have entered a timeline we shouldn't have stepped into. _Lenta recalled a memory of where she existed in a wrong timeline and corrupted the whole universe… and a 'consequence'. _Ugh, I don't want to remember it anymore._ Casting the haunting memories aside, Lenta patted Ayami on the head, ran her pale hand through her black hair as she tried comforting her, saying _It's not your fault. It's ok._

"We'll just have to try our best to not get involved in anything we're not meant to be in." Lenta said with a harsher and colder tone.

Ayami merely nodded in return.

"Who would've knew Mei was the first one that got herself tangled in a different world… Apart from you." Ayami smiled somewhat sadly. "It would seem as though I have to get stronger – I need to become stronger like you two."

With that, Ayami left the room, as Lenta remained silent in the room.

_I'm not strong_

_And my existence would never be noticed_

_Just like mere silence._

-TBC

**A/N:** Hello dear readers I am back with another lengthy chapter :P

So first of all I wanna say that I always complain with other authors that they don't update often so I need to update as regular as I can, but soon I'll be finding excuses and saying that 'I didn't have time!' or 'I was busy dealing with exams' but hey, this is the process of life |D I still have no idea as to how long this entire fanfic is going to be, or how long its gonna take me, but I haven't lost inspiration and/or motivation so I'll keep on going :D

Secondly I'm so sorry that this chapter is more of a bonus, it actually didn't matter if I typed this or not since it was more of an introduction and a background story chapter, but I felt like it would make more logical sense if I just threw this chapter in there whilst I still had the motivation to continue.

And thirdly! Hm, did I say this already? Feels like déjà vu all over again but Izumi Mei, Izumi Itsuki, (Yumeto) Ayami, Lenta and Hibiki is my OC and they have a separate story called SOUP-ER WAR CHAOS!. I actually didn't want to involve other OCs but I thought it would give more of Mei's background so I added 'em. Hope ya don't mind about this sudden introduction!

Lastly, I feel kinda bad doing this but I decided not to spoil the OCs' ability and personalities, but I will explain some terms used in the chapter.

Also I keep on typing 'Ayumi' instead of 'Ayami', well, this is what happens after too much Corpse Party!

[1] 'Irregularity' powers/abilities: - The term summarising a person's general power that is out of the norm, hence _irregular_.

[2] [Foreseeing Dreams]:- Ayami's main 'irregular' ability's name, looking into the future through the naturalist and unavoidable method possible, which is seeing the future through dreams, aka REM-sleep. As a 'symbol', a mark to prove this is that she had red eyes and can activate the ability to see the future even without sleeping. You can say a 'symbol' is the whole reason why an 'irregular' power exists.

Thank-you for reading and look forward to the next chapter! :D BTW it's so hot in Aussie… dunno if my laptop would be able to cope with the heat…


	3. Chapter 3: Identity

**Chapter 3: Identity**

Holding the red jacket in her arms that were crossed and holding onto opposite sides' elbow, she trembled a little more and sighed from disappointment. She thought it would be somewhat warmer because this time around, the sun's actually giving off genuine heat, but it seems the rain last night had managed to make the temperature drop by a few degrees.

Before she headed down stairs, she looked out into the morning light as she stood by the balcony. Unconsciously falling into a sea of thoughts, Mei shook her head violently and took a step on the stairs. _Hmph, I need to stop thinking so much! Just be straight forward… Straight forward… Now I think about it Lenta's probably much more straight-forward than anyone. In battles, she just does whatever she wants without thinking and things just work out… But me? I'm pretty much dying from thinking! Ugh… Gotta stop thinking!_

Slapping her face again, she decided to put on an act of being happy and just a completely different person from yesterday. _Maybe that'll make me feel a little better from my headache…_

But little did she know about the _other her_ in her was slowly slipping through…

Walking down the stairs seemed to take forever. Wearing her earphones probably wasn't the most ideal option since her head was still hurting from no sleep and excessive exercise yesterday and ringing noises of static noises was right by her ears, and thinking about things definitely make things better – but for the sake of communication, she _had_ to – there were no excuses nor were there any ridiculous and selfish reasons not to wear them.

_Strange,_ Mei thought in her head, _My head has never been this heavy ever since the morning I woke after their divorce… What does this mean? _Slapping herself on the cheek managed to slap some sense into her head as she snapped out of the state of where she could've possibly collapsed from headache – now collapsing on steps and with full men around was definitely not a good idea.

Making sure the jacket was dry for the final time, she finally had reached the end of the never ending staircase. Sighing with relief, she happily skipped towards the bartender, grinning at him like an innocent child as he continued perfecting the wine glass. Each and every single one of them looked so clean and identical to Mei that she almost couldn't understand why Kusanagi has to polish every single part of his bar's properties, but that could only mean he really cared about this bar~!

"Oiya, its Mei-chan!" Kusanagi looked up at Mei, with the same smile he'd always wear. "Aren't you an early bird – it's only 7:09am, you know? You can rest for a bit more if you'd like, since the bar isn't open yet."

"…Ehehe… Yeah… I guess I'll do that, thank-you Kusangi-san," Mei rubbed the back of her head as to relieve her throbbing pain in her head, but perfecting fell hidden behind an act of being grateful. Remembering something, Mei asked, "Mm… Um, Kusanagi-san?"

"Yes?" He replied without looking up to look at Mei.

"I have 2 questions for you – 1. Do you know where Yata-san is?" Mei asked as she shifted her arm up, revealing the red jacket lying comfortably on her arm, hinting as it was Misaki's jacket.

Kusanagi stared at the red jacket for a moment, and then broke into a small chuckle that seemed to be saying as though Misaki made some kind of process with this 'girl' problem for his. "Aah, if it's Yata-chan then he's on the first floor room closest to the staircase, on your right."

"Hmm… Ah, thank-you," Slightly surprised to how specific Kusanagi remembered this, Mei could only remember the bitter memory of when she was still a happy family of 4. Kusanagi reminded _too_ much of her mum that it scared Mei – _a lot_. She thanked the taller man and continued onto her second question. "Oh and… You can always turn me down, but I would like to use the kitchen, if there is one."

Kusanagi stopped polishing the wine glass and placed it on one of the shelves, adorning the empty spot in the middle. He turned around and hesitated, "Hmmmm… Well, sure, why not! But just make sure you don't trash the whole place… Like some people do." Kusanagi ruffled his hair and looked towards the door that was on his further left. Following his gaze, Mei realised that the door had a sign which wrote _Staff Only_ on it.

Mei smiled bitterly, "I understand how irritated you may be but thank-you for letting me stay over the night. I cannot be anymore thankful than this."

"Its fine~" A carefree and happy toned voice approached her. At first, Mei was slightly surprised, but she smiled nonetheless and Totsuka was just standing behind her, holding onto his camera, like always. _Hmm, Totsuka-san always has a camera with him, I wonder why? And moreover, where does he appear from? He is just like… 'Hey what's up?' and sneak up behind you…_ Mei thought with her lone eye closed, but quickly hurried over to the kitchen as Totsuka lead the way.

"Carefree as ever," Kusanagi smiled as he pulled out a stick from the cigarette box and lit the end of it.

The side of Mei's eyes caught a glimpse of a young figure sitting down with someone else… _Who's that?_ Mei thought out of curiosity.

Stopping and turning around, she observed quickly. It was a figure of a young girl with a rather pale tone of skin sitting on the black couch in the corner; she has long and silky white hair and had a pair of beautiful red-purplish orbs. Wearing a black and red Lolita fashioned dress, she laid her head comfortably next to another figure with a miniature top hat and a lacy ribbon tied around her head. The figure slightly startled Mei – it was no one else but Suoh Mikoto, the Red King.

Mikoto was simply closing his eyes as the cigarette burnt the smell of cigarette into the room. Mei was traumatised for a second, or for a few minutes, however long it was Mei could feel a wave crash into her. _So was it him that was listening to the call…? I mean Kusanagi smokes too… But his cigarette smell resembles the one when I was in the room… Well I have done a very good job of being the 'spy', I don't even know if he's an ally or not! He could be an enemy and kill me of the bat just like that!_

"Ah! I know!" Totsuka popped his head out of the edge of the door and walked over to Mikoto and the young girl. Patting the young girl on the head, Totsuka softly asked, "You want to cook with us, Anna-chan?"

Waking up, Anna rubbed her eyes tiredly and looked at Totsuka with a confused face. "Hm? Cook… What?"

"Hmmm… Let's see…" Totsuka stopped to think about it as her sat on the couch next to Anna. Looking over at Mei, he asked, "What are you going to make, Mei-chan?"

_Everyone's calling me by the first name with '-chan' in the end… It really does remind me of another family._ Mei smiled at the thought. "Oh uh… Secret~! I know – Anna and I'll do some 'cooking' as the boys keep out. IT'S GIRLS' TIME" Mei joked as she walked closer and closer to Anna, simply ignoring the King's presence. "Would you like to help me, Anna-chan?"

Holding a marble in her hands, she lifted it to her eyes and stared at Mei with an emotionless face. Trembling for a mere moment, Anna agreed with a small nod as she shyly held Mei's hand as they headed for the kitchen. Anna could feel her icy cold hand against hers, and Mei thought hers was colder than Antartctica! Giving her hand a little squeeze, Anna was surprised by how warm her hands were – she could simply wonder why since she could feel the stiffness in her hands earlier.

"Eeh?! I want to cook too…" Totsuka pouted and argued, but his argument ended without a word as Mei and Anna disappeared. "Maybe I'll cook Tom Yum later for dinner…" Totsuka thought aloud.

Mikoto merely sat there, relaxing as he was having the time of the life just sitting there, sleeping like a baby.

"Aah! Don't smoke whilst asleep!" Totsuka pointed at Mikoto as black smoke escaped his mouth.

"…Hmmh…" Groaning, Mikoto pulled out the stick and breathed out another row of black smoke. Following Totsuka's words, Mikoto crushed the cigarette butt with his heavy foot and continued sleep as thought nothing had happened.

"King is always such a sleepyhead," Totsuka mumbled as he looked at Mikoto's face as he slept the morning away.

Even humans with powers out of the norm could have such a vulnerable and peaceful expression on their faces as they fall asleep.

_~In the kitchen~_

"I am Izumi Mei, and you're Anna, am I right?" Mei kneeled down to look at Anna at knee height. Her red orbs were simply cunning to look at, though there were still a few lingering feelings of nervousness and tension built in her eyes. Smiling, Mei spoke, "We're going to make some cookies for the HOMRA family! Hm, I actually don't know much of HOMRA so I shouldn't be calling you guys a _family_ just yet, but your group really does remind me of a family,"

Successful, Anna's expression softened at the thought of a 'family'. Anna simply nodded at the thought and said, "Yup, we're a family."

Nodding in agreement, Mei asked with a soft tone but sounding troubled at the same time, "Can you help me name some people from HOMRA and tell me what cookies to make? I've only met Yata-san, Kusanagi-san, Totsuka-san, Mikoto-san and you, Anna-chan."

Anna nodded without another word and a small smile slipped into her small face, adorning a lovely little girl. _For some reason, Anna really soothes me down. She isn't like all the other people in HOMRA – she's quiet and sensible, but not only that, simple talking to her makes me feel so much better and I don't even feel pain in my head… But I wonder why I feel such sadness coming from her eyes? It's as if they're saying something important to her would disappear or be gone forever…_

As Mei stared at Anna, Anna herself was unsure of what to do next. _This onee-chan is very different, in fact, so different that I can't read her. Who is she? _"Um," Anna broke the silence and pointed at the object in Mei's arms. "That, isn't it Yata-san's?"

"Hm?" Mei's unnecessary thoughts were interrupted and looked down where Anna had pointed towards. "…Ah… I forgot I had to give this back… Anna-chan, I'll be back very _very_ soon, I need to make sure I give this back to Yata-san. Thank-you for reminding me!"

With the same emotionless expression written over the young girl's face, Anna simply nodded as she received a pat on her head. "Hm, but I can't just leave a young lady with the oven and knives, now can I?" Mei smiled awkwardly as she looked over to the oven and objects around the kitchen that could potentially get Anna's beautiful skin hurt or bruised – there were knives, fire, glass bottle, you name it. _Shoooot I told Totsuka-san and the others not to enter… I guess I don't have a choice..._ "Hmph, well, since the guys outside aren't allowed inside, I will be sly and cast a magic spell on little Anna so that she wouldn't get hurt~"

"Magic?" Anna tilted her head to one side as she looked at Mei. _Uwaaah so cuuuute~_ Mei mentally covered her nose as red liquid leaked from excessive moe.

"Yup, a magic spell. Give me a sec~" Mei pulled out Anna's fragile and soft hands with her left hand. As she looked at the hand, she drew her index finger to the palm of Anna's hand and traced what it seemed like a pentagonal star with a circle surrounding it. Additionally, Mei closed her eyes as she wrote a huge 'X' over the palm. Ending this, Mei placed her hand on Anna's and after a few moments, shifted her hand revealing a lovely red ribbon.

Anna, who was observing the process carefully, was surprised by the sight of a long, deep red ribbon that lay comfortably in her small palm. "Yup~ Make sure you don't lose it! I'll be back in a flash – you'll be amazed by my speed!"

With that said Mei opened the door and headed upstairs, closing the door with a soft moaning _creak_. Anna was left alone in the kitchen, all quiet and silent, but she wasn't at the same time.

_Her_ magical ribbon was with her.

As Mei got out of the kitchen, she was greeted by familiar figures of men. _…I had totally forgotten that it wasn't just Anna and I in this building, there's still full grown men everywhere! God, Ayami's gonna give me an earful once I get back…_ Mei sobbed uselessly as she tried ignoring the 3 figures, but was taken aback by Totsuka's question, "Can I have a little peek? Just a little?"

"No," Mei replied with a death glare and headed up stairs. "Totsuka-san you've just gotta wait."

Trembling from rejection, Totsuka finally gave up and hung his head low in thought. _I just want a little peek… _Totsuka thought as tears pooled up in his tears, making him look and sound like a 13-year-old complaining in an anime. Kusanagi simply chuckled as he was checking today's menu and making sure stocks were up to date.

_~Misaki's not an early bird! I swear!~_

_Knock Knock_.

If Mei remembered correctly, this should be the room where Misaki sleeps in, but for some odd reason, there wasn't even a single hint as though someone was in there. _Hm, not quite an odd reason since it is only 7:14 or something like that in the morning, if it wasn't because of nightmares, I would've definitely slept through noon._ Mei thought as she stared at the door, not even expecting a reply.

Figuring out all this, Mei decided to knock on Misaki's door once again before he could leave the dry jacket besides his doorstep, Mei could hear clear raging screams coming from the room, and several foul words came out of the raging.

"WHY THE BLOODY HELL CAN'T I EVER BEAT THE FUCKING RECORD?!" was what Mei could hear the clearest within the screaming and background noises.

_What's Misaki doing? It sounds like Elemental when he's raging…_ Mei thought as she gripped the door knob, twisted it and peeked inside with curiosity. _A PC? Haven't seen one of those for quite a while now…_

"Haaaah…?" Twisting a portion of his tense body, Misaki glared at the gap when Mei was looking through with his fierce amber eyes. "Is someone theeeeere… Kusanagi-saaaan?"

_Pfft, he sounds like he's drunk or something!_ Mei thought as she hid behind the wall, covering her mouth as she chuckled quietly. Clearing her throat, she walked up to the door, knocked on it a few times and impatiently opened the door without any hesitation as she purposely did so. "Yata-saaaan~ What are you doing?"

Mei was greeted with a sight of a relatively disorganised room, but not revolting or so messy that I can't even make out the floor. There were just things all over the place – clothes stacked on top on the cabinet, magazines barely hanging onto the desk. The bed was obviously used recently since no one ever bothered to fix up the blankets and stuff… Overall, it was messy, but still bearable.

Near a PC was Misaki. A black tank top covered his top half loosely and a pair of green shorts loosely sitting upon his thighs. His chestnut hair was messy and pointing in various directions, untamed. At one point, Misaki wanted to throw his chair at whoever was at the door, but when he heard her voice, saw the smirking face, Misaki's face flushed red and burned like a ripe red tomato.

"W-w-w-w-w-why a-are y-you here, I-I-I-I-Izumi-san…?" Misaki mumbled in embarrassment as he turned the moving chair towards the wall, facing his back at a laughing Mei.

"Nothing, just wanted to see whether you were drunk or not," Mei smirked as she walked up to Misaki's trembling body and poked the back of his neck as a violent shiver was sent down Misaki's spine.

Even though Misaki's face was burning red, he swears his entire body was shivering like a falling leave from autumn, but not from natural cold. "I'm not d-drunk alright?!" Misaki yelled as he clenched a hand as he turned over to the 165cm girl that continuously teased him whist taking advantage. "I-I-I'm just angry at something, ok…?!"

"Yeah yeah," Mei still smirked at Misaki's apple tinted face and threw the jacket at Misaki's face. "Here, your jacket. Thanks for giving it to me," Mei gave Misaki a genuine smile as she smacked Misaki's back a tad too hard. "And that's how I say 'thank-yous', be appreciative, if it were my friends they would've threw knives or scissors at ya and do it the kuudere+tsundere way~"

_Hah? Wow, what friends does she have? Also how much did she exactly change in a few hours? Yesterday she was all calm and mature, but now she's just being mischievous and humiliating people… What. The. Hell?! Girls are so creepy sometimes…_ Misaki thought as his eyes twitched with the thoughts as he pulled the jacket off his face and mentally messed his hair with his hands.

"…Hm?" Holding onto the jacket, he felt as though the jacket was a lot drier than usual. "…It's not wet? From the rain yesterday?"

Realising the problem, Mei simply narrowed her eyes at the dry jacket held in Misaki's hands, as if thinking of an excuse.

_There's no washing machine in the building since Kusanagi-san keeps complaining how this isn't a hotel, and there's no iron around since we all gather our clothes and go to a laundrette or use our flames to dry the clothes… So how?_ Misaki thought as a sweatdrop rolled down his red cheeks. Looking up at Mei's facial expression, he couldn't help but to think what a mysterious person Mei was.

"What do you mean it's not wet? I've gotta give it back to you properly," Mei replied, not even breaking a sweat. "I used my blow dryer to dry it~"

"Oh… Ok." Blinking a few times, Misaki looked dumbfounded, and then slowly, he could feel his face temperature rise a few degrees more. "…So… Exactly why are you in my room?"

"I don't know," replied Mei with an ambiguous answer. Looking at the computer besides her, she said with a better detailed answer. "I just heard you screaming so I can to check you up… So? Playing games I see?"

"U-Uh.. Yeah, I guess…" Misaki rubbed the back of his head with nervousness. "Haven't been playing for a long time, so I decided to try it out."

"Will ya let me try playing for a bit, I've always wanted to play this game," Mei started as she took a step closer to Misaki, asking with a serious tone. "But since I have no PC or even the slightest time to play, I actually have the chance to, so will ya?"

"Hmph… You're probably gonna die right away. It is pretty hard. Give it a shot and if you beat the record, I will admit you're a good player." Misaki crossed his arms out of frustration as he remembered playing through the morning without being able to reach even three hundred points away.

"349679 points… What's the max you can get?" Mei asked as Misaki offered the chair for Mei to sit down. "I'm a little curious, that's all."

"Not quite sure, since no one has actually ever gotten so close," Misaki replied with an honest reply. "The creator has been keeping a secret too… That bastard…"

"…Just what I've always heard it would be like, well, here goes nothing." Mei grinned from ear to ear as she selected the _[Game Start]_ and took a shallow breath.

Staring at the tutorial and the mouse, Misaki eyed Mei with a curious eye, "Usually girls aren't into games, so why are _you_ so eager about it?"

"Hmmmm…" Practically smashing the keyboard at lightning speed, Mei moaned to think. "…Secret~"

Unable to follow the flashing fingers of Mei's, Misaki was completely dumbfounded and amazed. Kneeling down, he leaned against the table as he crossed his arms and placed his chin on the table. Misaki stared at the figure's posture. Her expression was completely stuck on the screen, not even blinking a single time. Added to that, was a smirk that was filled with confidence.

In no time, she had finished a round of game and a screen showed an almost impossible score.

-599999 points-

"Hmm… I could've done a lot better if I slept a little more…" Yawning, Mei threw herself, leaning against the chair as she thought with her right hand in a thinking gesture. "Oh well! It looks like 600,000 points was the max for most regular rounds~"

"…How did you…" Unable to spit any words, Misaki merely stared at the screen, astonished. In fact, he was feeling more of scared than being amazed. The girl next to her had so much potential in her, but he had been completely oblivious to it.

"Aah~ Well, the game concept was simple. Type words that will get you through stuff and survive, but the key point is this game is an American game and translated into Japanese, so it is common if the script was following the standard English programming. Within the script it also hinted that using English word would get you further, so yeah~ Since typing is required, you've gotta grasp the skill of touch-typing to guarantee 100%. Oh but that doesn't necessarily mean I hacked or cheated, I just _heard_ the whole script coming through mah ears," Mei smiled without a sweat. "Overall, it wasn't too bad – it was fun so that's always a positive, and so? Will you admit that I'm a _good_ player?"

Eyeing Mei with a glare that could simply pierce one's mind, Misaki thought no matter whom this girl was, a boy a girl, a secret otaku gamer or whatever, he's just irritated and pissed, and no one's going to deny that fact. "Hmph, I bet _'The 31__st__ day of May'[1]_ would beat you better!"

Slightly surprised by the sudden statement, Mei had her lips gapped and slowly grew into a smirk as she touched her black eyepatch. "Well how 'bout this, what if _May_ was me, what would you do?"

Misaki open his mouth as to say something, but then simply staring at Mei made him realise something. "May… Izumi… Mei? _Mei?_ May… Uwah?! Wait what?! You're…!"

"Yup, that's right~" Mei winked as she pointed at Misaki with her index finger, inches away from Misaki's disbelief face. "I'm the gamer of gamers – The 31st day of May. Well, you've found out 'bout my secret~"

Mei smiled, but the angelic smile and ended with a devilish hint of curve carved into her smile and slowly turned into a devil's smirk.

_I am the opposite of what you thought first, Ayami._

**A/N:** Imma end it here – jokes, there's still little Anna we've gotta add~

"…" It's been about 15 minutes since Mei disappeared to Misaki's room. What's taking her so long? The object in her clenched hands was revealed to be vibrant and vivid crimson red ribbon that seemed to even sparkle under the lights. Anna had been staring at her new present with curious eyes, and when curiosity finally taken over Anna, she eagerly pulled out a marble. Before placing it before her eyes, she took in a deep breath and looked through her transparent and red tinted marble.

Slightly startled, Anna pulled the marble away and jumped off the wooden chair that was by the long and wide table and ran out of the kitchen, her small feet taking her upstairs.

"A-re? Anna-chan?" Looking through his camera's clips, Totsuka caught sight of Anna taking her first step up the stairs. "Where are you going? I thought you were cooking with Mei-chan?"

Anna turned back before she could set her other foot on the upper step, and said with a slightly concerned face. "I'm going to get Mei-nee-san." And with that, Anna went in a flash, with her ribbon still in tight hands.

"Hmmm… They better haven't messed the kitchen…" Kusanagi thinks out aloud as he serves the first customer of the day.

Panting and leaning against the wall, Anna brought herself together and knocked on Misaki's door gently. At first there wasn't an answer, but there muffled talking in the background. Anna couldn't help but to lean against the door, trying to figure out what they were saying.

'Pfft, Yata-san! Stop killing yourself – it doesn't make any fun for me if the round just goes like that.'

'…So, you say I keep killing myself?! Well, I'll show you how to fucking kill!'

'But you still ended up getting killed by me, fabulous job Yata-chan.'

'Don't call me 'Yata-chan'! It's strange when you call me that… It's just… IT'S JUST WEIRD OK!?'

'Eeeh then stop calling me 'you' or 'god', it's weird for me, and it's creepy.'

'…I am so going to kill you… FFFFF- HOW THE FUCK DID YOU DODGE THAT?! YOU'RE USING HAX! CHEATER! URGGGGGHH…!'

Suddenly, the noises became softer and as Anna leaned in closer, the door had to smash open and Anna planted her face on the tiled floor without notice.

"Hm?" With perfect unison, the two figures holding onto PSPs lifted their heads to the door, only greeted with an Anna picking herself up and rubbing her forehead. "A-Anna? What are you doing here?"

"…Oh holy schnitzel…" Surprised and guilty, Mei pulled out her iPhone that was in her jacket pocket all along and checked the time.

_7:32am_

Realising _just how_ late she was, Mei ran towards Anna and gave her a tight hug as an apology. "Sorry! I am so sorry Anna-chan… I didn't realise how late I was! We'll go downstairs, ok?"

Misaki stared disgustingly at the somewhat-touching-and-comforting-moment and turned his head to the PSP that was lying on top of his messy and disorganised blanket.

_That girl definitely is hiding something…_ Misaki thought, then just realises that Mei's a little weird and crazy in the head and nothing else much to it.

"Well, I guess we'll leave the gaming to another day, Ya~Ta~Ga~Ra~Suuuu~" Mei smirked and teased, purposely dragging out the boy's alias. "Oh if you want you can keep the PSP – both of 'em if ya want since my back is packed with other stuff… I still have another 8 of them so see ya around~"

Misaki twitched at the way Mei smirked, the way she dragged out his name… It felt as though she was a doppelganger of _that_ annoying monkey. With this thought, shivers were sent down his spine and instinctively grabbed both of the PSP consoles and threw it directly at Mei.

Since Misaki was still sitting with his legged crossed on the bed, his aiming was naturally at hip height and that was where little Anna was standing!

Without even having to break a sweat from the surprise attack, Mei swings her left arm with her hand out straight like a plate and sends the 2 consoles flipping back and landing onto the cold tiles.

Sighing, she gave Anna a tight tug and walked over to the PSPs, picked them with one in the gaps of 2 fingers, lifted her right hand and glared at Misaki who was equally surprised to Anna. "You know you shouldn't be wasting things on violence," Mei softened her eyes but still had a death glare stuck to her eyes. Sighing, Mei swung her arm round and round until she stopped at Misaki's face, merely a few millimetre away from his nose. "Luckily they still work or else getting a punch from a girl doesn't sound great to you eh~?"

Smiling with such fake innocence, Misaki blushed from both embarrassment and anger. Frustrated, Misaki gripped hold of Mei's wrist before she could turn around to do whatever she needs to do, and tightened it.

"I don't even fucking care who you are, I'll make sure to beat the crap outta you…" _…'cause you fucking remind me of that shitty monkey…_ Misaki thought, but had been smart for even this one time and thought silently. He glared at Mei with a death intention as he tightened Mei's wrist. She merely tilted her head to look into the amber eyes, but her eyes showed signs of only confidence. God, this girl can be so different and complicated to understand sometimes! Before flickering flames could escape his palms, he had let go of Mei's wrist and continued to stare at Mei as if she was a criminal or a murder.

Chuckling, Mei walked over to an extremely confused and surprised Anna and knelt down to give her a hug. Still remaining in that position, Mei turned over to look at Misaki's intimidating expression and poke out her tongue, giving him the 'P'. "If you wanna kill me, call me any day – I will be there to kill you over and over, Yatagarasu-kun~" With that said, Mei flicked her fingers as Misaki caught the object that was travelling at the speed of lightning. The object Mei had thrown at him was a piece of paper, with a few words and numbers written on top of it.

Before Misaki could give back the piece of paper, he looked up to see nothing by his doorway – not even Anna was in trace of sight.

…_Hmph! As if I'll have to use this, I'll come to your house instead and you're your entire fucking family and burn your fucking PSPs and games!_ Misaki thought angrily as he crunched the piece of paper bit by bit, and when his hand was fully clenched, he opened his hand as the piece of paper burned by the crimson red flame emitting from his hand.

_Yata's just too easy for a target,_ Mei smirked as she walked down the stairs. _He gets angry so easily – I love seeing the expressions he makes! Well, Ayami behaves like a normal person but still a lack of expression. Lenta? Don't even mention about it, she's unreadable almost all the time, except for irritation and throwing tantrums… Cleaning up the tantrums' the worst though. Itsuki's just the quiet little brother type, he used to be more annoying and clingy but since mum and dad left he's grown timid. Oh well, poor kid but what else were we gonna do?_ Her face gradually softened and turned into a thoughtful but saddening expression.

"…Mei-nee-chan," Anna stopped at one of the steps as she pulled a bit of Mei's skirt. Her face was unreadable like always. Anna reminded Mei a lot of Lenta, but they feel so different at the same time. Anna's red orbs were filled with all kinds of emotions, but Lenta's was just blank... and dead, but Lenta's felt like she could easily pull you into a foreign world and show you a sight you'd never seen before.

"Yes~, Anna-chan?" Mei turned around, smiling at the younger figure.

Anna hesitated – curiosity finally had gotten over her. Putting her hand out, she slowly opened it, revealing the same magical ribbon that Mei had given her. Anna looked up at Mei's eyes and looked at her with innocent eyes.

"Who are you?"

**-TBC**

There goes Chapter 3~ Well, did you like it? Oh, you don't like cliffhangers? I thought you did D: Anyways, gotta leave it at that~ Thanks for all the views and alerts, it keeps the motivation going but hey, I don't write just for popularity, I write for my entertainment and most of all, for you guys to enjoy! :D

If I haven't mentioned already… The time in this fanfic (or at least for this long prologue arc) is set around late Autumn-ish because in the Ashinaka High School incident aka approx. Episode 13, it was snowing so I thought – let's be like Mei and think logically here.

I'm not going to mention a lot of 'memories' during these episodes except the parts where Totsuka-san gets to play the guitar. Can't leave it out! But yeah, I haven't read the manga or read the light novels yet, so I'm actually relying on the anime a lot… I just don't have the time to read I only have time to type goddarnit! D:

Finally thought of a decent enough title and changed the lengthy title of the fanfic! KAOS, now a typical name but hey, I fucking love chaos. 3

Lenta? Ayami? Itsuki? Elemental? What's up with all this OC-ness author-san? Well, author-san wanted to make sure Mei wasn't on her own or else the separate story of hers called SOUP-ER WAR CHAOS! Aka The CHAOSProject wouldn't exist… Sorry for all this but I'll make sure to give the characters more of a background story. Elemental's not gonna be mentioned as much so I'll clarify here:- Elemental is a character developed by my friend for the project, so right now I'm being a rebel and using him in my fanfic… Shhh!

If [K] was owned by me I would've made 100+ episodes and turned into an anime series myself instead of writing my own fanfic. [K] belongs to GoRA/GoHands~

The cookie making would come in next episode. Geez! I do like to leave Anna alone, leave poor Totsuka-san out of the story and torture Misaki's gaming skills don't I…Lawd, I just love how the anime/characters fit in so well with Mei's character, especially Saru in terms of powers. XD

Look through here for images of some of the character's appearances (take away the []):- [ ][rainydays27][.deviantart][ ] So I kept changing minds of uniforms and ended up with like 3 main designs, but hey! The main point is the heroines and heroes, right? Right.

I need to stop making long A/N notes, seriously though, I just used 5 min of my time to type all this. [(The A/N itself takes up 443 words…

Thank-you for reading~


	4. Chapter 4: BooKs

**A/N:** o(*▽*)o~ A filler chapter for ya guys~ Ok maybe I shouldn't be so happy with a filler since it has _almost_ nothing to do with the actual story plot and it's FULL ON OCness but hey, the story plot should be hella random and… flashback-y and very fluffy – it's just a random omake kind of episode with my favourite unofficial pairing in the project 3 It's not official 'cause I haven't got permission for it and my teammates are still pending on it but hey, I'm a rebel and you know it~!

Well, enjoy it~

* * *

**Chapter 3.5: BooKs**

"We're back!" It was the familiar voice that belonged to the 16-year-old teen girl with stunningly beautiful strands and locks of black hair that hugged her body all the way up to her hips. There were rustling noises of plastic bags and footsteps that echoed the house.

Walking straight ahead on the wooden floorboards in the empty and spacious hallway, she turned to her right and slid the sliding door open as quietly and elegantly as she could, but the door still ended with a _bang_.

Looks like Yumeto Ayami needs to get used to not only the layout of her friend's house, but she needs to get used to the habit of living in the traditional house that she owned.

It's ridiculously big! Even though she lives practically alone with her cousin who claims to be her 'big brother', the whole house never fails to amaze Ayami in all ways. It doesn't leave a single thin layer of dust on anything in the house and the hallway is just ridiculously wide! You could have a mini room if you arrange some things – living with Akihana Lenta's style of life isn't so easy.

The young figure who followed Ayami's footsteps timidly behind her was Izumi Itsuki. _Izumi?_ You got it – he is Izumi Mei's younger brother who was only 13 years old!

If you can't read minds like Mei can, or if you can't be Ayami and use [Black Paint][1] on people to draw out thoughts, or you decided to skip all the ridiculously long chapters and came to this, you might as well read this. Itsuki's family used to consist of a very average, but very happy family – just like how the crimson red eyed girl is living her life right now, if it weren't for finding out she inherited a monstrous trait from her ancestors who was revealed to be an oni in the periodic time. It was one out of a million to inherit this rare power, as Lenta had analysed for her. But now we're not talking about Ayami's life, we're talking about Itsuki's. Let's not get sidetracked, yeah?

_-Flashback-_

Itsuki's 13 years may be short, but it was long to experience such a dramatic change. His parents were separated from each other, and all alone with his sister who was only 13 at the time, Itsuki 10 at the time, they had suffered different personality changes and habits. Mei became more serious and disciplined, and Itsuki became more timid and scared of making relationships with others – whether it was to make friends or fall in love, he was scared he would get betrayed again. Fortunately, Itsuki's previous true best friends stuck by him, did their best to support Itsuki as much as they could – and Itsuki couldn't be happier, but Mei, his loving sister slowly became anti-social and started to trap herself into her room for a few hours.

This was when Itsuki realised she probably had secluded herself from reality.

It was strange; the only one that changed so much from reality was his sister. Everything. She was confirmed to have complete heterochromia iridum with a purple eye and a blue eye, but why so suddenly? Mei's violet eye reminded Itsuki a lot of a clock and what has been thought could have been un-thought, so with that in mind, Itsuki grew to hate clocks.

When Itsuki thought Mei secluded herself from this game called 'reality', she was in fact planning future plans and strategies for her and Itsuki to survive. Their relatives lived very far away you see, and since the irresponsible parents who broke up over a simple reason of sleeping with other men, they had completely forgotten about the 2 that were still even too young to work. Of course, sleeping with other men isn't just another 'simple' reason – it has the same concept of 'betrayal', but this is also why relationships are so complicated and difficult to handle.

One of Mei's plans was to somehow move to her Grandpa's, but since he had a full house, it was out of question – Mei didn't want to disturb his happy life of 5 already – they'd probably think they're a bother or something, not that the Grandpa wouldn't ever mind since he was the nicest guy you'd find, but no, he is growing old, he doesn't need more to worry.

Since Mei was going to turn 14 on 14/3, which is in approximately 2 weeks, she could work at some part-time job or something. Now that she had sorted out about the money part, she thought it was necessary to also get a scholarship for Kannazuki High once she gets older. So for that, she studied days and days, secluded herself from the outer world, and closed herself from school. Well, school was over and on holidays but she had to go to cram school which she decided to go and a reluctant father had to agree, but that father no longer existed in Mei's mind and all she could focus on was advanced maths, English and science/geography.

Like this, Itsuki lived well under his big sister's care, but sometimes he had to make sure she doesn't do anything overly tiresome. Sometimes Mei would get sick from trying too hard at exams so Itsuki had to take care of Mei whilst she rested. Sometimes Mei came back very late from double sessions of cram school and physical education, so Itsuki would make meals and refreshments for the older to savour. Honestly, there were times where Itsuki thought his sister was being overprotective and overworked herself, so Itsuki promised to himself once he hits 14 he would work along with Mei.

But before he could finally show that he could survive on himself, Mei had _randomly_ joined the most dangerous team of them all.

The CHAOS team.

_-Flashback Fin-_

Even until now, Itsuki still finds the group scary and powerful. He heard that every individual in the group has several diverse supernatural power, but what about Mei? She never told him about it. Could it be the eye or could it be something else? But anything other than that, Mei is a very average and disciplined teenage girl, what was so different about her?

"Welcome back," the younger teen whispered a monotonous voice as she sat in her comfortable cushion, kneeling on it as she held a cup of black tea in her hands. "Did you get them?"

"Yeah…"Ayami replied somewhat weakly as she averted her eyes, avoiding Lenta's dead eyes. "…But why Shounen Jump?"

Lenta lifted her mug to her small lips, sipping a small portion of the burning hot tea. "Why, I assume you have a problem?" Lowering her cup, she seemed to be emitting a faint aura of killing intent.

"N-No, captain. J-Just curious…" Ayami placed the bag of a mix of manga and DVDs on the small coffee table and smiled awkwardly. Even thought she said she was curious just as an excuse, she still found herself being curious.

Looking over to the nearby row of bookshelves that were filled with different coloured cover spine decorated the dull white wall, Ayami pulled out a cushion to sit on, and Itsuki did the same.

Now, don't get me wrong but at first, Ayami is very average. So average that she used to be average, so Itsuki was able to get along with Ayami the easiest. But Lenta. Just this Akihana Lenta! She has barely shown any sign of emotion towards anyone… Ok, maybe except for maybe throwing scissors out of irritation at Elemental for flirting with her, but otherwise, her tone of voice, her eyes, everything about her was just plain mysterious.

Her fake brother, aka cousin, is no way like her. Akahana Hibiki, a happy-go-lucky 17 year old teenage boy that is from the infamous Japanese family heritage that once saved entire Japan, or what they said. They once exorcised many onis and killed many harm to the world, but it was mainly in Japan and China, therefore having only a certain bond with the Japanese and Chinese. Despite this fact, Lenta is actually half Japanese and half Russian, making her the only excluded illegitimate child from the entire family that had thousands and hundreds of years of history. She was to either survive alone without telling her real identity to the public, or she is to left alone and rots wherever - her existence was a complete disgrace to the family heritage, despite such potential. It was going to be tough wither way for Lenta, and she had decided to live on alone, but her cousin Hibiki did not allow this to happen, therefore left his parent's house and lived on alone with Lenta, though she still continuously rejects stubbornly against the elder teen by calling him 'onii-chan', instead, she calls him the 'fake brother' or just 'Hibiki' without any honorific.

Despite being hated by his little stubborn princess, Hibiki still remains protective with Lenta and protects her as if she was his little sister.

Being hospitalized for a good 5 years or so because of a weak body and internal problems, Lenta has finally given up socially as she attended school shortly after released from hospital as the students were bullying her, both physical and verbally. No matter how much she tried, every single one of them would call her a 'weakling', 'dumb', or just some other stupid name calling and negative points – in fact, Lenta was the complete opposite of being weak. She was strong and smart, but just the small figure she was born as gave off the weakling feel.

Her parents were gone dead in a supernatural death, which isn't so abnormal especially when she shares a family heritage that was involved in incidents, and since she was the illegitimate child, the curse has taken its path, but the poor girl was only barely over 4 when she witnessed all this.

Lenta has remained not smiling for a very, very long time. Don't even mention about smiling, she doesn't even show a single sign that she is even living, and the files of Lenta's mental health wasn't so great also – she showed signs of schizophrenic as she said she could see her dead twin sister coming back for her… But was merely pushed aside as the thought it was part of the family heritage thing.

Unemotional expressions were one thing, but she didn't speak much. In fact, she avoided speaking to anyone. She didn't want to – she didn't wanted to be hurt again.

"Hm, so you want to finish off some homework, Hibiki?" Ayami suggested as she grabbed out a pen and a piece of paper, smiling gently towards Itsuki as a bag of books were sitting beside him. "I'll help you if you get stuck, ok?"

"Ah… Thank-you, Yumeto-san," Itsuki replied weakly as he pulled out a few text books and exercise books and placed it on the coffee table. "Sorry to disturb you, Akihana-san."

As if ignoring the apology, Lenta walked over to the bag of manga and DVDs and pulled out a volume and threw herself on the bed as she observed the cover carefully.

Before she could even flip the page open, a doorbell rang loudly as it echoed through the hallways and reached the room furthest way from the entrance door.

Lenta's eye twitched when she knew the visitor was going to be a troublesome one. The only one that forced Lenta to give the address to…

Elemental.

"Ah, someone's at the door want me to ge-" Before Ayami could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by the stomping Lenta made as she threw the door across and ended with a loud slam. Still stomping, Lenta couldn't be bothered to even close the door, thus leaving a stunned and scared Ayami and Itsuki inside, with their glasses covering over their eyes.

Its strange how Elemental is the only one that was able to successfully draw out such emotions out of Lenta. If it wasn't for him, no one would know that Lenta was actually a human, but why only Elemental and not even the cousin could even get Lenta to smile even for once?

"Lenta-chan~ I've come to see you with a gift you'll definitely love~!" As suspected, the 17 year old teen was standing by the door, shadows made as he held onto something in his hands.

There were silence as an answer, but before Elemental could make his second door bell ring, there were stomping that was rapidly approaching the door. Smiling as he immediately knew an irritated Lenta was approaching him, Elemental ducked down as sharp weaponries and cutlery were thrown towards him. The smile that had turned to a smirk, he confidently held his right hand as a fist greeted it with an attempted punch at his face.

"As violent as usual, my waifu-chan~" Elemental joked as he clenched Lenta's fist and knelt down on his knees, kissing Lenta's hand so ever softly like a gentleman, but this was called flirting!

"I told you not to call me that," Lenta twitched as she pulled out her hand that was in his soft hold and pulled a blade of scissors against his neck. "Die, I don't want to see your face."

"Maa, maa~ Just chill, I'm just here to visit," Elemental smiled as he pulled the dangerous blade away from his neck and stood with his head tilted. "Got some books for ya."

Lowering her sharp pair of scissors, they disappeared as they were stored in her 'inventory'[2]. Looking at the bag of books seemed to make her waver and hesitate. You see, Lenta _desperately_ loved books from all genres including gore to romance, though she doesn't understand a lot of the concepts in romance novels and how stupid a lot of it was, she liked manga more than anything. Nodding reluctantly, Lenta lead the boy into the house.

"…I heard doors breaking and other noises," Ayami came out of the corner and eyed them with a threatening feel to her red orbs. "Was it really necessary to destroy the whole door down?"

"Maa, this is Lenta-chan's house, I'm pretty sure she can do whatever she wants," Elementaru placed his arm on Lenta's shoulder, winking at Ayami's annoyed figure. "Though she'll be coming with me after a few more years~" Elemental tried hugging Lenta but failed as she nudged his face away with her elbow.

"Sorry," Lenta replied softly and followed Ayami back to a hardworking Itsuki. Elemental simply followed closely behind with a seemingly unrepaired door with a piece of paper written _'Back to Normal'_ on it.

Returning back to Lenta's personal own room that was twice the size of a standard bedroom, Lenta simply fell back of her soft bed and started reading her manga.

The room was silent for a while, not an awkward one but just the nice quiet working silence for Itsuki who was busy writing down formulas and equations to solve – that is until Elemental broke the comfortable silence.

"So where's Hibiki?" Elemental asked as he munched on some snacks he found in Lenta's kitchen. God, he can be so unmannered sometimes! "And where's Mei? I thought they'd be over your place to have a party or something."

"Party?" Ayami looked up at Elemental with a questioning eye. "Why would you think we'd have a party at Lenta's? That's just going overboard."

"Nah not really," he pulled out another potato chip and munched on it whole, "But still, the point is where are they?"

As Ayami was about to explain the whole situation, Lenta explained a whole paragraph of analysis towards the others without a single effort as she continued reading and looking at the manga guys.

"Mei's at Shizume city for the sake of our next defense attack," Lenta started, Elemental, a member of the CHAOS team, was still slightly startled as this was still news to him. Putting down the packet of chilli flavoured chips, he listened closely.

"'The 7 Destruction'[3] is probably is going to happen around that region, and since there is 7 clans under the name of 'Kings' with their appropriate colour, it does make sense the name is called _The 7 Destruction_ – or so what Mei sent to me in a document through text. The 7 clans consist of Silver, Gold, Red, Blue, Green, Colourless and another colour she has yet to discover, but she said for certain it exists in the region." Lenta placed her book down and rolled over to face Elemental and sat up, kneeling then changed her position to prevent pins and needles.

"So she decided to search further in and found out a sufficient amount of information about the clans, but found herself lost in the city… Idiot," Lenta said emotionless with her eyes closed. "And with that, a guy named Yata Misaki bought her to the HOMRA bar and had her stay there since she didn't really have a choice. Apparently she infiltrated into the Red Clan's HQ without her even trying, so she was being cautious but the mistake she made was not to even stay over at the place."

Elemental gulped as he thought the next thing wasn't going to be so funny. Lenta stood up and caught all the people in the room's attention. Lenta pulled down her long sleeved shirt that was 2 sizes bigger than her, making the shirt all baggy on her slim figure. The shirt was easy to pull, but it showed a long scar that went down from her CHAOS insignia all the way to perhaps her elbow since she didn't pull down enough to show the full scar.

At first, the 3 were flushed red in the face. Ayami covered Itsuki's eyes before he could see anything through his innocent eyes and continuously asked Ayami what was going on, but with the sudden interaction, Ayami couldn't seem to explain the situation for Itsuki – especially since he was only a 13 year old. Out of the two, Elemental was the one who was blushing furiously like a Spain tomato, so badly red that even the edge of his ears were tinted with a red dye. As he fainted out of embarrassment Ayami stuttered, "W-W-W-What a-are y-y-you doing… Lenta!"

Ignoring the exaggerated reaction, Lenta turned to show the 2 the scar upon her insignia. "This scar was the only one that my body has left. Even until now, it is still very purple." After say this, Lenta grabbed a nearby fruit knife and stabbed her thoroughly through her chest to her stomach. Ayami and Elemental was surprised from the sudden action, but it didn't scare them.

Crimson blood poured all across the white tiled floor and the room immediately turned into a bloody scented room. Ayami quickly escorted Itsuki out of the room and headed for the kitchen, leaving Elemental and Lenta in the room, hoping Elemental would somehow get the reason out of Lenta.

"Oi, Lenta, what the hell are you doing so randomly?!" Elemental yelled as he gripped hold of Lenta's bloody right hand with her knife.

If you think she was crazy, and she might die any moment, well you're very much the opposite. Although the blood still remained on the floor, her wound that would've been impossible to repair was replaced with a magical ancient rune that twisted itself around her fresh wound and it was all gone.

Her entire front body was perfectly fine as if nothing had sliced through her – not even a scar was left behind. "What the…"

"Haven't you figured it out?" Lenta said soft as she threw the knife into the metal bowl, making clanking noises as it finally settled. "You know how my body works – cut it, slice it, whatever you do, it will never leave a sign that it ever happened."

Narrowing his eyes, Elemental gripped tight of Lenta's hand and looked at her with a demanding eye. "Why did _that_ scar remained on you? Who did it? I'll kill them…"

"I did it," Lenta said with an uneasy face. "But not consciously."

"What… do you mean?" Surprised and shocked, he asked cautiously.

Placing her bloodied hand atop of the spilled blood from her body, Lenta gathered the liquid and stored it in a small droplet like container and disappeared in her hand as it went into her 'inventory'. "I was trapped in a loop, a timeline, a time frame I should've avoided at all costs," She started as she tried pulling her hand out of Elemental's determined grip. Finally giving up, she sighed and continued, "Right now, I suspect Mei is in a loop, like I had experienced it. The very first syndrome is when you know a future event and when you stab yourself on your insignia multiple times."

Lenta stopped for a moment as she closed her eyes, as to think of an appropriate continuation. "Lucky for me, my main 'irregular' powers is to be able to recover fast from flesh wounds, but if Mei got involved, it wouldn't be so easy for her to get rid of the wound. Even until now, I still have my scar and it has been 6 months – 2 months before meeting Mei and all."

"What's the side effect…?" Elemental hesitantly asked as he scanned the young girl's small figure. He had no idea she had gone through such a hard time through a timeloop.

"You will at worst scenarios, die from interfering the loop," Lenta calmly replied as she purposely said that first. "Actually, I still have yet to know why timeloops exist, but you can think it as people with time travelling 'irregularities' and re-looped the event, but it is a forbidden magic spell. Other than death, you will gain another soul in your physical body, making you suffer from split personality and several other psychological syndromes that may only apply to magic – this is the one I currently suffer from, I had to make a certain contract for me to continue living, though I really regret that." Lenta gave Elemental a tight squeeze as she looked at the tiles.

"Other effects… Well, I'm not sure, but all I know is once you become attracted to the event, you won't get out of it at all unless if you are brainwashed or something so that you forget all about it, but it won't be easy for Mei since she can read the atmosphere like a book, she would get attached to it, so determined to stop it. I can see that happening already."

"I… See…" Elemental was out of words.

"Hibiki is currently out to find Mei, god that stupid fake brother had to go even though I explained all this to him." Lenta sighed as she attempted to get out of Elemental's grip. "And when are you going to let me go?"

At first, he had a frown on his face, but slowly turned to a smirk as he pulled his hand up to Lenta's eye level and leaned closer to Lenta's small face. "It's a punishment for trying to kill yourself, waifu-chan~"

-oOo-

"Um," Itsuki tugged Ayami's sleeve as he looked down, "W-What exactly happened inside with Akihana-san and Elemental-san?"

"Uhh…" Recalling the bold action, Ayami couldn't help but to have a small blush that spread across her cheeks. Trying to restrain herself from blushing, Ayami made up an excuse, "Lenta was reading a really weird manga so when Elemental asked her what she was doing, he saw a picture that wasn't good for his eyes…!"

Itsuki stared at Ayami as he looked angry. "You know I'm not a 3-year-old anymore…"

"Ahaha… Sorry!" Ayami clasped her hands together and apologised. "It's just some private stuff they had to figure out together! That's all, I swear!"

"Hmm…" Still curious, Itsuki glared at Ayami. "I swear I smelled blood in there.. But now it's gone. Could it be a magic trick to trick me? Just tell me if I'm annoying." He looked hurt as he said that, but when he looked up at Ayami, his face resembled so much of an uke from a yaoi episode Ayami practically died from drowning in blood.

"Well, think whatever you think, I've got to go and check on them." Ayami laughed as she walked out of the kitchen door and was greeted by a battered Elemental thrown out of the door.

"How many idiots do I have to tolerate…" Lenta rubbed her temple as she dropped back on her bed and closed her eyes. She hadn't been sleeping since Mei went missing, you see.

"Hehe, my wife's mad at me." Elemental poked out his tongue and received an alarm clock as a present that was thrown at his face. "Shut. The. Hell. Up."

"You know I'm not going to be responsible for you death…" Ayami said as she sighed. "Why exactly are you so attached to Lenta?"

"Her reactions never fail to entertain me, she's a hell of tsundere and dandere, and she's a great challenge and obstacle – I just can't seem to keep away from her, it makes me feel dead whenever I try. Despite her violent rampages, it still makes me wanna hug her~" Elemental said out loud, obviously directed to Lenta who hadn't reacted to the sudden compliment.

Lenta didn't throw anything this time, unexpectedly. She lay motionless in her warm blanket but slowly heated up. "What the hell is wrong with that guy…" She mumbled as her words were muffled and unheard. Not long after, she slowly fell asleep and slept soundly.

Smiling, Ayami sighed and gestured her hand as she thought it would be meaningless for her to convince Elemental to stop following the captain around. "Well, exactly why did Lenta so abruptly cut herself?"

He didn't seem to reply through words, but his expression stiffened and his icy blue eyes were narrowed and concerned. "Well… She said Mei might be involved in a timeloop. She was also apparently involved in one so she was just trying to prove she was right. Goddamnit, I would believe her nonetheless, but seeing her being sliced open doesn't seem right, it hurts me just to think her childhood was so corrupted that she needed to prove she was right…all the time." Elemental clenched his fist and gritted his teeth.

_This is the first time I've ever seen Elemental this serious_, Ayami thought surprised by the sight. "Well, she is able to at least trust you, despite you being a playboy and all,"

"What do you mean a playboy? This is pure skills!" Elemental raged at Ayami as she chuckled slyly. _I know she likes you, but she still needs the time to develop the lost emotions she once had._ Ayami thought painfully. She just wanted this ship to freaking sail but it's not going to happen anytime soon.

"Shhh, Lenta's asleep, don't disturb your wife~" Ayami smirked as she nudged Elemental and skipped the way back to the kitchen where Itsuki was silently eavesdropping.

"Huh… Wife? Did she just…" Elemental stared at the figure as it disappeared and completely freaked out when he realised there was someone who actually supported them. It was impossible, right? He must've just heard it wrong as 'knife' instead of 'wife'… It doesn't make any sense but he stuck to it as he buried his face into his palms and thought about it.

_I don't like Lenta, she's annoying and throws things at me every time she sees me but why do I feel so happy whilst around her? Was the compliment of Lenta's true? Do I feel dead not seeing her? I haven't seen her at all for 2 weeks and I did feel dead… I call her my wife just to gain attention, but to gain attention for what?_ Elemental sat aside Lenta's sleeping figure and wondered with a million questions going through her mind.

Ayami and Itsuki returned to Lenta's room that was thankfully back to normal, but only with a sleeping Lenta on her bed whilst it was 12:01pm. Staring at Lenta's vulnerable expression whilst asleep did make Elemental's heart flutter a bit. _If I continue this, I'm probably going to really fall for her…_

Staring at Elemental's confused face, she was confused herself. She thought Elemental loved Lenta? If Ayami was wrong, then she would've been the culprit, but his face just writes 'confused'.

"Yumeto-san, I don't understand how this algebraic expression works. Can you please explain it to me?" Itsuki broke Ayami's train of thought, but she dropped her thoughts and smiled at Itsuki, "Of course!"

-TBC… Not yet!

"Hm?" Seeing a manga lying besides Lenta, Elemental pulled the book over and observed it slowly. He used this to distract himself from love and all – too bothersome! But when he thought the series would be fairly normal, there were weird yaoi moments in the middle and m-preg moments… illustrated and not only that, the characters heavily resembled himself and Hibiki. _What the hell is this? Hibiki is the bottom? WHAT?_ Elemental swore his glasses cracked at the sight of the pages and as he skipped all this he stopped at yet another strange chapter. There were 2 teen girls that looked identical to Lenta and Mei. OMFG what the fuck has she been reading… Elemental glanced at Lenta's angelic and innocent expression whilst asleep, and then glanced at the R18+ manga.

_I am never going to question her knowledge._

**-TBC on Mei's POV**

* * *

**A/N:**

The ending part was kind of inspired by a moment by Yuki Nagato from Haruhi-chan, well, kind of. Who would've thought captain/waifu would read stuff like that? /Laughs

It wasn't really funny especially in the middle when Lenta sliced herself… But hey, I'm not a sadist and I never was one! Lenta just needs to adjust herself sometimes and prevent others from thinking she's a crazy weirdo, but she doesn't know how… But her husband would be there, don't worry about it /chuckle

And yes, my favourite pairing is LentaxElemental, but alternatively I like LentaxMei and ElementalxHibiki… Fujoshis and fangirls everywhere /smirks

I tried to limit my character's backstory but there's so much history to it! Sorry to bore you all out D: This chapter wasn't as funny as I thought it would be, but hey, this wasn't meant to be a comedy fanfic anyway!

Notes:

[1]: [Black Paint] is a 'irregular' power of Ayami's and what it does is basically calligraphy by writing kanji and words on a piece of paper and stick it on an object or human to activate the 'spell'. In this instance, she could use the power and write 'See through' on the person and read her/him like a book.

[2] 'Inventory' is something every CHAOS member receive after getting their CHAOS insignia signed on their left lower side arm.

[3] [The 7 Destruction] is a name for an oni that the CHAOS team fights against, well, through chaos if you haven't realised. They actually do their best to prevent chaos that the mortal would be unable to defend.

[4](From earlier chapter) '31st of May' is a title for Mei who once gamed on her PC since she thought she'd give gaming a shot, then got the full score for a game that was claimed to be impossible.

Thank-you for reading! :D

Oh Ayami just bought the manga Lenta listed, she's not a fujoshi! I swear! XD

* * *

Elemental: CHAOS team's members belong to Author-san.

_Lenta:_ …And [K] belongs to GoRA and GoHands.

**Rainy:** What's up with the awkwardness between you two?

Elemental: …Lenta?

_Lenta:_ Yeah Playboy?

Elemental: Are you a fujos-

_Lenta:_ -throws scissors whilst blushes- What did you say?

**Rainy:** Oh my god… Lenta stop being a freakin' tsundere/dandere and stop throwing scissors and knocking out Elemental! It's a pain when I have to clean it all up!


End file.
